A common question that many people ask about society is why certain events happen and what causes them to occur. Sociology is a study that explains why these questionable events take place, and what motivates human behaviour. Sociology developed from sociologists creating theories based on human behaviour in society. Many sociologists contribute to the study of society by creating ideas and constructing theories in order to try to explain the reasoning for the functioning of human society;. Specifically, Charles Cooley studied the relationship between the individual and society. Charles Cooley wanted to better understand why human beings behaved the way they do. To do this, he studied the meanings humans attach to certain situations, and …show more content…
We imagine how they evaluate us based on their observations. We develop feelings about ourselves based on our impressions of their evaluations and observations. I would have integrated this list into a paragraph. An experiment was conducted on children to test Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self theory. Children were told to enter a room where there was a large bowl of candy. The children were instructed to only take one piece of candy from the bowl. The children were left in the room, but were being watched through a video camera. The children were unaware of the fact that they were being watched, and took as much candy as they possibly could. The experiment was repeated, but this time the room was lined with mirrors so when the children entered the room, they could watch themselves. In almost all of the situations, the children took only one piece candy, as they were told. Even though there was no one else in the room, and did not know they were being watched, they still only took one piece of candy since they were watching themselves in the mirrors. As the children observed themselves in the mirrors they saw what other people would see and thought they would be labeled as greedy, therefore, they altered their behaviour out of guilt. This relates to Cooley’s theory because the mirrors in the room act as the members of the individual 's primary group. Cooley concluded that the images the children saw in the mirror is how they believe society …show more content…
As long as we are interacting with others, we will continue to develop our self identity based on correct and incorrect perceptions of how others see